2012 Conventions: Taiwan, Orem, Australia Australia Australia, Las Vegas, BayCon, SDCC, Chattanooga, Gen Con Indy, Albuquerque, Dragon*Con

Peter here filling in for Brandon since he's on a flight to Taiwan for the book expo. Below you'll find most of Brandon's convention schedule for 2012. There might be a couple more one-day stop-ins with Utah conferences, and we're waiting to hear back about an invitation to an autumn convention somewhere in Canada.

April will be Brandon's first visit to Australia. Swancon and Supanova have pooled resources to fly him out, so we hope Australian readers can send them the message that this was a good idea by attending in droves.

This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode talks about sensory writing with Sam Sykes, and there's an ALCATRAZ annotation talking about the lack of a map in the book.

Taipei International Book Exhibition

Dates: February 2–4, 2012
Place: Taipei International Book Exhibition 2012
Address: Taipei World Trade Center
District 5, Section 5, Xinyi Road, Sinyi District
Taipei City
Taiwan 110
Type: Signing
Schedule: FRIDAY 2012/2/3
14:15–15:15 TIBE HALL1
Reading/Q&A/Signing

SATURDAY 2012/2/4
14:00–15:00 TIBE HALL2
Signing
19:00–21:30 Eslite Shin-Yi store, 3F
Main Event: Interview/Q&A/Signing

Notes: Brandon is a guest of Fantasy Foundation.

Life, the Universe & Everything, Orem, Utah

Dates: February 9–11, 2012
Place: Life, the Universe & Everything 2012
Address: Sorensen Student Center
Utah Valley University
800 W University Pkwy
Orem, UT 84058
Type: Convention
Schedule: Brandon will be there Friday and Saturday only. There will be a live recording of Writing Excuses at 2:00 on Friday, and Brandon is currently scheduled to be on panels at 11:00 and 2:00 on Saturday.
Notes: Remember that this year, LTUE will be held at UVU.

Doom-Con, Swancon 37, Perth, Australia

Dates: April 5–9, 2012 (Easter weekend)
Place: Doom-Con, Swancon 37
Address: 207 Adelaide Terrace
Perth, Western Australia 6000
Australia
Phone: +61 8 9224 7777
Type: Convention
Notes: Brandon is International Guest of Honor.

Supanova Melbourne 2012, Australia

Dates: April 13–15, 2012
Place: Supanova Melbourne 2012
Address: Melbourne Showgrounds
Epsom Road
Ascot Vale
Victoria 3032 Australia
Type: Convention

Supanova Gold Coast 2012, Australia

Dates: April 20–22, 2012
Place: Supanova Gold Coast 2012
Address: Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre
2684 Gold Coast Highway, Broadbeach
QLD 4218, Australia
Type: Convention

Superstars Writing Seminar, Las Vegas

Dates: April 30–May 2, 2012
Place: Superstars Writing Seminar
Address: Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino
129 East Fremont Street
Las Vegas, NV
Type: Writing Conference
Notes: Brandon is an instructor alongside Kevin J. Anderson, David Farland, Rebecca Moesta, and Eric Flint, with special guest speakers Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Dean Wesley Smith.
Prices go up April 1, 2012.

BayCon 2012, Santa Clara, CA

Dates: May 25–28, 2012
Place: BayCon 2012
Address: Santa Clara Hyatt
5101 Great America Parkway
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Phone: (408) 200-1234
Type: Convention
Notes: Brandon is a Guest of Honor.
The official con name this year is BayCon 2012: Pleasure Cruise, but we're pretty sure there is no actual cruise involved.

Comic-Con International, San Diego

Dates: July 12–15, 2012. Preview night July 11.
Place: Comic-Con 2012
Address: San Diego Convention Center
111 W. Harbor Dr.
San Diego, CA 92101
Type: Convention
Notes: Brandon is a Special Guest.

LibertyCon 25, Chattanooga

Dates: July 20–22, 2012
Place: LibertyCon 25
Address: The Chattanooga Choo-Choo
1400 Market Street
Chattanooga, TN 37402
Phone: (800) 872-2529
Type: Convention
Notes: Brandon is a Guest of Honor.

Gen Con Indy 2012

Dates: August 16–19, 2012
Place: Gen Con Indy 2012
Address: Indiana Convention Center
100 S Capitol Ave
Indianapolis, IN 46225
Phone: (800) 529-EXPO
Type: Convention

Bubonicon 44, Albuquerque, NM

Dates: August 24–26, 2012
Place: Bubonicon 44
Address: Albuquerque Marriott Uptown
2101 Louisiana Blvd NE (Louisiana & I-40)
Albuquerque, NM 87110
Phone: (800) 228-9290 — make sure to mention Bubonicon
Type: Convention
Notes: Brandon will be a Guest of Honor. This is a small convention and in recent years memberships have been close to selling out in advance, so preregistration is strongly recommended.

Dragon*Con 2012, Atlanta

Dates: August 31–September 3, 2012
Place: Dragon*Con 2012
Address: Various hotels in the Peachtree Center area. See the website.
Type: Convention

Alcatraz Annotations + Updates

In this week's Writing Excuses podcast episode, Dan, Mary, Howard, and I talk about brevity.

Since all the chapters of my abandoned novel MYTHWALKER have now been uploaded, it's time to start dishing out something else for your weekly bonus content. So my assistant has put up the first annotation for ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE EVIL LIBRARIANS. This one talks about the process of coming up with the title for the book, with the various (and often ridiculously long) options that were considered.

If you're not familiar with my book annotations, think of them as the director's commentary on a special edition DVD. On your second read-through of a book, you may be interested to hear what I have to say about each chapter. Currently I have completed annotations for ELANTRIS, the Mistborn trilogy, and WARBREAKER. Check them all out. (Spoilers from later in the book than the current chapter are hidden.)

My assistant also uploaded another Twitter posts archive.

The leatherbound Wheel of Time charity auction for Worldbuilders is currently at $1,725.00. Wow!

I believe there are still slots available for the Magic the Gathering: Dark Ascension prerelease in West Valley this Friday. They don't count a slot as filled until you prepay, so give them a call.

Magic Dark Ascension Prerelease

Hey, all. The new Magic the Gathering set is coming out in a little while, and the prerelease is this weekend. Dan and I had a lot of fun at the prerelease last time, so we’re going to be doing it again—with a twist.

Like for Innistrad, we’ll be going to Epic Puzzles & Games in West Valley at midnight on Friday. However, to shake things up, instead of drafting we’ll be doing a sealed deck tournament. (If you aren’t familiar with this, you get six packs and build a deck out of those packs.)

We will do an 18-person tournament, not including Dan and me. (So, 20 people.) As 12 of the 18 people play games against one another, Dan and I will team up against the six others in an Archenemy game with both Dan and me as the archenemies. Then, when those games are done, the six who played us will rotate out and six others will come in to play against us. And then, not surprisingly, we’ll play the last six.

This means we only have EIGHTEEN slots. We need to restrict it so that the tournament will work and so that we don’t end up staying TOO late. Therefore, if you want one of the slots, you’ll have to call Epic and preregister/prepay. There’s a chance I’ll be open to playing side games, like always, but I can’t guarantee it. (And, as always with these, I'm happy to sign books and might even have some copies of my novels for sale/trade. I'll try to show up around 11:30 if anyone needs books signed.)

So, details again:
Day: The night of Friday the 27th of January.
Time: Midnight (okay, so that means technically this starts on Saturday...)
What: 18-person Sealed Deck tournament, with special games against Brandon and Dan.
Where: Epic Puzzles & Games 3612 W 4700 S #4
Salt Lake City, UT 84820
How: Preregister by calling this number: (801) 982-0167

There will be some other fun things to this. (Beat Dan and me, and you will probably get a prize. Also, it’s likely that the tournament will be two-headed giant. We’ll explain the rules when you come, but if you have a buddy and want to sign up in pairs, go ahead.) Hopefully we’ll see many of you there. Or, at the very least, 18 of you...

Brandon

Signed, leatherbound THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT auction for Worldbuilders charity

Every year for the past several years, NAME OF THE WIND and THE WISE MAN'S FEAR author (and good buddy of mine) Patrick Rothfuss has run a charity drive where he matches at 50% donations to Heifer International through his Worldbuilders team page. Everyone who enters the general drawing gets a chance at a huge number of prizes. There are also individual auctions on several of the most desirable items. Pat explains it best.

I've donated various books to the prize pool before, and this year I and Badali Jewelry have teamed up to donate a special Wheel of Time package to the auctions. My contribution is from among my personal leatherbound copies of THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT. With each Wheel of Time book that is released, Tor puts out a limited edition of 126 signed copies, 100 of them numbered for commercial release, and 26 of them lettered for publisher and author use. I received copies B and S of both books, and I'm donating the matched set of S copies.

Please see Pat's description below. The auction itself is here, and you can see the other auction items here. And remember, for every 10 dollars you donate on the Worldbuilders Team Page, you get a chance to win a book from the general prize pool.

• AUCTION: signed, leather-bound copies of The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson with Wheel of Time jewelry.
  

These gorgeous gold-lettered books are leather-bound and designated "S" out of 26 lettered copies. The books come in their own matching leather slipcase, feature a facsimile of Robert Jordan's signature, and are signed by Brandon Sanderson.

In addition to these stunning best-selling books, this auction includes three lovely pieces of jewelry inspired by Jordan's series: an Asha'man Dragon Pin, a Dedicated Sword Pin, and a Great Serpent Ring.

We are very grateful to Brandon Sanderson for his donation of these rare books, and to the folks at Badali for making things even sweeter with the addition of the jewelry.

To see more pictures of these gorgeous books, or to place a bid on the auction, click here.

Sanderson's Second Law + Updates

This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode covers more on fauna and flora. Check it out.

My assistant Peter has uploaded a new Twitter posts archive and the final chapter of my abandoned 2001 novel MYTHWALKER. He's also put up my Sanderson's Second Law article, which was first printed in the June 2011 issue of LEADING EDGE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY. The failure of MYTHWALKER was a contributing factor that led me to develop the Second Law.

A few years back, I wrote an essay on creating magic systems that I titled Sanderson's First Law. It had to do with the nature of foreshadowing as it relates to solving problems with magic. In that essay, I implied that I had other "laws" for magic systems that I'd someday talk about. Well, that time has come, as I've finally distilled my thoughts for the second law into an explanation that will work.

I'll start, however, by noting that none of these "laws" are absolute. Nor am I the only one to talk about them. By calling them "Sanderson's Laws" I'm merely referring to them in the way I think of them—they are rules I try to live by when designing magic systems for my books. There are a lot of ways to write, and the only real "laws" are the ones that work for you.

These work for me. I think they are actually all principles of good writing, not just writing as it pertains to magic systems. However, because magic systems are one of the things I most like to toy with in my writing, I have designed them in such a way that they encourage me toward stronger, and more interesting, magic in my fantasy books.

Read the rest here.

Updates + Hugo-Eligible Works & Gemmell Award Nomination

My assistant put up another chapter of my abandoned 2001 novel MYTHWALKER. This one is exciting. There's just one chapter left.

In this week's Writing Excuses episode, Dan, Mary, Howard and I talk about worldbuilding flora and fauna. Check it out.

It's award nomination season again, so here's a quick reminder of what I've released that's eligible this year.

Eligible in the category Best Related Work:

• Writing Excuses Season Six

Eligible in the category Best Novel:

• The Alloy of Law

Eligible in the category Best Novella:

• Infinity Blade: Awakening

Eligible in the category Best Short Story:

• "The Eleventh Metal" (in the Mistborn Adventure Game)

You can nominate at this link by March 11th, 2012, if you are a member of the 2011 (Reno), 2012 (Chicago), or 2013 (San Antonio) World Science Fiction Conventions by January 31st, 2012. For more information on how the Hugo Award works, see my breakdown last year.

My fiction is additionally eligible to be nominated for a Nebula Award by February 15th, 2012, if you happen to be a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

I've also learned that THE ALLOY OF LAW is on the long list of nominees for this year's David Gemmell Legend Award, and the first round of voting is open now and runs through March 31st. Last year The Way of Kings won the award, to my great pleasure, so I already have the awesome battleaxe. Please vote for the book you think deserves it this year.

Plus I have a vested interest in the nominations of Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler, my Writing Excuses partners (aside from my brother Producer Jordo, whose only eligible work is Writing Excuses itself). Last year Mary won the Best Short Story Hugo for "For Want of a Nail," but Howard and Dan were defeated by worthy opponents in their categories. This year Dan is eligible with I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU and A NIGHT OF BLACKER DARKNESS for Best Novel and "The Mountain of the Lord" in MORMONS & MONSTERS for Best Novella, Howard with SCHLOCK MERCENARY: FORCE MULTIPLICATION and "Deus Ex Nauseum" from SCHLOCK MERCENARY: EMPEROR PIUS DEI for Best Graphic Story, and Mary with "Goodhouse Keeping" from COURTS OF THE FEY for Best Short Story, "Kiss Me Twice" from the June 2011 ASIMOV'S for Best Novella, and "Whatnot" (a puppet play performed at the 2011 Worldcon) for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

Soulcaster Fan Jewelry, Writing Excuses Season 7 & MYTHWALKER

Forum member FeatherWriter posted this image of the Soulcaster that her mother made her for Christmas. Cool!

Season 7 of the writing advice podcast Writing Excuses that I do with Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells has just kicked off. In the first episode, we talk about when good characters go bad.

My assistant also uploaded another chapter of my abandoned 2001 novel MYTHWALKER. There are three chapters left.